David S. Levine is an Associate Professor of Law at Elon University School of Law and an Affiliate Scholar at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School (CIS). He is also the founder and host of Hearsay Culture on KZSU-FM (Stanford University), an information policy, intellectual property law and technology talk show for which he has recorded over 190 interviews since May 2006. Hearsay Culture was named as a top five podcast in the ABA's Blawg 100 of 2008 and can be found at http://hearsayculture.com. His scholarship, which has been published in several law reviews including Florida, North Carolina and Stanford Online, focuses on the operation of intellectual property law at the intersection of technology and public life, specifically information flows in the lawmaking and regulatory process and intellectual property law's impact on public and private secrecy, transparency and accountability. He has spoken about his work in numerous venues, from the American Political Science Association annual meeting to the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, and internationally.

Active in policy analysis, he has made presentations to the negotiators at several negotiating rounds for the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), testified before the Library of Congress, co-authored influential law professors' letters regarding the TPP, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), and is a member of the North Carolina Mining and Energy Commission's Protection of Trade Secret and Proprietary Information Study Group that is tasked with writing the state's hydraulic fracturing regulations. Having been interviewed and quoted in many media outlets, from NPR to the Los Angeles Times, he is a recurring contributor to Slate. He was previously a resident fellow at CIS, legislative aide in the New York State Assembly, assistant corporation counsel for the City of New York and in private practice in Manhattan. He holds a BS in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University and a JD from Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

The FBI produced a short film in July 2015 about an Chinese-backed attempted trade secret theft prosecution that actually occurred. Somehow I missed it; perhaps I was focusing on opposing the just-signed Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), which was merely fledgling legislation a year ago. Having been referred to this film today, I'd planned to watch it under a doctor's supervision (for fear of blood pressure issues) this weekend. Instead, it beckoned me like the latest episode of Veep, so I watched it this afternoon. I was not disappointed.

As CIS readers may recall, I've been very concerned about the problems associated with the proposed Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA). Ostensibly designed to combat cyberespionage against United States' corporations, it is instead not a solution to that problem, and fraught with downsides.

Today, 21 cyberlaw and/or cybersecurity professors and researchers joined a letter calling for the Senate to reject the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act ("CISA"). Endorsing the concerns raised in an April 2015 technologists' letter, the signatories identify the fundamental problem with CISA, namely, that it will achieve little to address the real cybersecurity challenges facing US industry.

Today, North Carolina’s Governor Pat McCrory has a billon his desk that would make it impossible for the public to find out what entities are supplying the chemical cocktail – the drugs – to be used for lethal injections in North Carolina.

Climate change is a significant and complex problem facing the world today. To solve the problem will require the coordinated efforts of both the public and private sectors. As with earlier challenges of global significance (such as the polio epidemic), new and improved technologies promise solutions.

Last week, a new group called the Industrial Internet Consortium—made up of several technology companies including AT&T, Cisco, GE, IBM, Intel and interestingly, Vanderbilt University—announced its plans to create engineering standards for the “Internet of Things.” IoT refers to the connection of smartphones, routers, thermostats, sensors, and other objects to the I

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"“What OpenGov is attempting to do is make this very complex data usable by people who are not financial experts,” said David Levine, an affiliate scholar at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. “It’s very important work and I’m delighted that there is at least interest (from the private sector) in helping government do that. This is the beginning of the story, rather than the end.”"

A closed-door briefing was held in Washington yesterday for staff on the Senate Judiciary Committee to review draft laws to create a new private right of action under federal law for the theft of trade secrets.

"The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is en route to Singapore to finalize a new international agreement that has the potential to lock in our intellectual property laws to 95 pages of standards that have never been officially released to the public. Those standards are being included in an intellectual property chapter of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) - a broad new international law governing trade and domestic regulations in 12 pacific rim countries - and intended to ultimately bind the whole world."

In the midst of the controversy surrounding the release of a Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) negotiating text on intellectual property by Wikileaks yesterday, over 80 law professors of intellectual property law and related disciplines have written to President Obama, Members of Congress and the United States Trade Representative calling for the creation of a public process to vet the TPP’S intellectual property proposals.

Over 30 legal academics from current or potential future Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) negotiating countries wrote to United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk today. The letter, the text of which is posted below, criticizes the USTR decision to cancel full day stakeholder presentations for the current round of negotiations being held in Dallas, Texas.

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DARC is a multidisciplinary conference about Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and drones—with an emphasis on civilian applications.

Attendees will take part in a far-ranging exploration of these technologies and see firsthand the latest advancements in aerial robotics. In addition to looking at the cultural impact, legal challenges, and business potential, we’ll also examine specific applications for drones including: agriculture, policing, wildlife conservation, weather, mapping, logistics, and more.

Andrea Matwyshyn, a law professor at Northeastern University Law School, and David Levine, a professor at the Elon University School of Law, discuss a federal appeals court ruling that could make it easier for the government to bring criminal charges against people who share passwords for online accounts. In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. upheld the conviction of a man who was convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of accessing his former employer’s computer system by convincing a then-employee to share her password.